Last presidential election I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party as a vote of conscience. It was clear by the GOP Convention or earlier that Obama had the election locked up, and besides I live in Mississippi, so a Democratic vote in the general election was a useless exercise.
Now, I am registered as a Democrat. This time around, I will undoubtedly vote for Sanders in the primary, even if it is clear that Clinton will win.
Sanders is not perfect, and many of my lefty friends point out his positively reactionary side, primarily on foreign policy. He certainly never cast an abstention or Nay vote for conscience when it came to Bush or Obama-administration emergency war appropriations. But he's transparent, scandal-free (to my knowledge), and will at least (apparently) fight for democratic liberties for American citizens in America.
Now, if somehow Bernie Sanders should become the Party's nominee, I will undoubtedly break my own resolve about never voting for the lesser of two evils again, because (just as I thought in 2008 about Obama) then casting a vote for him will be enough like a vote of conscience.
I can afford to cast it because Bernie were somehow to win the election-- and I think he probably would, but I'm not offering such prohibitive odds on him as I am on Hillary-- he would be far less of an evil than Clinton than Obama was in lieu of either of his opponents.
I make the odds against any Republican candidate facing Hillary Clinton at 3-1. And I am finding it almost impossible to tempt diehard Republicans to wager even at odds.
There is one Republican who would compete with Hillary, and might defeat her, if she wanted to run. However, former Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) is adamant that she retired from the Senate after 3 terms because she was tired of dealing with the yahoos in her own party.
If Republicans see that they've got a bloody convention coming up, they would do well to approach her and tell her that her moderate conservatism and unblemished record are what they need to defeat a Hillary Clinton who's polling 10 points above her nearest putative Republican challenger. It would, of course, require the establishment Republicans to reign in the Tea-Partiers and evangelical fundamentalist wings of the party.
Hillary is going to have much longer coattails in victory than Obama did in 2008. That year's Democratic gains in the Senate and House had nothing to do with Obama, and the proof of that is the near record-breaking turn-around in the very next (midterm) election.
Me, I'm going back to voting for DA and Sheriff and County Superintendent and the like. Those officials actually bear some degree of responsibility to me.
Unless Hillary does or says something that disqualifies her as surely as if she had called for banning all Muslims (she's a Democrat; Republicans can say such obviously over-the-top stuff because their audience is both scareder and raised on Fox, thus, easier to entertain), she has this election in the bag.
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